Last week the Northwest Jesuits agreed to pay $166.1 million in a bankruptcy settlement with about 500 people who were sexually abused by priests. The majority of the payment will come from the religious order’s insurers. The Northwest Jesuits declared bankruptcy in 2009 when a number of sexual abuse charges were brought against the order. This is the largest abuse settlement against a religious order in the US (as opposed to a diocese).

The abuse occurred primarily in American Indian boarding schools, and the survivors are mostly American Indians. The Jesuits are generally associated with education – they run a number of high schools and universities – and also have a reputation for social justice (with obvious exceptions in the field of reproductive justice). But abuse was apparently far too common in the remote boarding schools:

“There is a huge number of victims, in part because these Native American communities were remote and vulnerable, and in part because of a policy by the Jesuits, even though they deny it, of sending problem priests to these far-off regions,” said Terry McKiernan of Bishopaccountability.org, a victims’ advocacy group that tracks abuse cases.

I can only hope the settlement brings some closure for the survivors of abuse. But it is quite frankly despicable that the Northwest Jesuits are able to hide behind bankruptcy law to protect themselves from greater liability. The order was trusted with the spiritual and education guidance of so many vulnerable young people, and they flagrantly, and seemingly systemically, abused that position. I honestly don’t have words for how disgusted I am.

As the case with the Northwest Jesuits is drawing towards its close, another suit was filed Monday against the Chicago Jesuits, charging the order with ignoring or hiding decades of warnings about abuse by former priest Donald J. McGuire. Documents dating all the way back to the 1960s show the order was repeatedly warned about Fr. McGuire and directives were even issued about his future behavior. Yet they continued to put him in positions where he worked with young boys, including letting him take young assistants on his missionary trips, and even telling a diocese he was in “good standing” as recently as 1998.

“I have never seen such detailed and frequent notice received by the priest’s superiors, so many ‘directives’ regarding the priest’s future behavior, and so much evidence presented to his superiors that those directives were being violated, without the priest being removed from ministry,” Mr. McKiernan said.

These two suits paint a deeply disturbing picture of the way pedophile priests have been protected within the Jesuit order. Again, I’m at a loss for how to express my outrage and deep heartbreak that such gross injustice could be perpetrated by an organization tasked with the education and spiritual guidance of young people.

Boston, MA

Jos Truitt is Executive Director of Development at Feministing. She joined the team in July 2009, became an Editor in August 2011, and Executive Director in September 2013. She writes about a range of topics including transgender issues, abortion access, and media representation. Jos first got involved with organizing when she led a walk out against the Iraq war at her high school, the Boston Arts Academy. She was introduced to the reproductive justice movement while at Hampshire College, where she organized the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program’s annual reproductive justice conference. She has worked on the National Abortion Federation’s hotline, was a Field Organizer at Choice USA, and has volunteered as a Pro-Choice Clinic Escort. Jos has written for publications including The Guardian, Bilerico, RH Reality Check, Metro Weekly, and the Columbia Journalism Review. She has spoken and trained at numerous national conferences and college campuses about trans issues, reproductive justice, blogging, feminism, and grassroots organizing. Jos completed her MFA in Printmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute in Spring 2013. In her "spare time" she likes to bake and work on projects about mermaids.

Jos Truitt is an Executive Director of Feministing in charge of Development.

Today in depressing facts we need to do something about: This new report on the “sexual abuse to prison pipeline,” which cites sexual abuse as one of the greatest predictors of girls’ entrance into the juvenile justice system.

Not only does the report alert us to a serious problem in sore need of research and reform — it challenges us to think more rigorously, more systemically, and more kindly about cycles of trauma and abuse.

Put out by the Human Rights Project for Girls, the Ms. Foundation, and Georgetown’s Center on Poverty and Inequality, the report finds that girls are entering the juvenile justice system more than ever — and not because they are becoming more violent. Rather, increasing enforcement ...

Today in depressing facts we need to do something about: This new report on the “sexual abuse to prison pipeline,” which cites sexual abuse as one of the greatest predictors of girls’ entrance into the juvenile ...

After 200 years of lying about it the Mormon Church is finally admitting that its founder Joseph Smith had forty wives. If the Church can change its official line on the man they consider to be their prophet, they can surely update their sexist policy barring women from becoming priests.

To clarify, the news isn’t that Smith was polygamous, but rather that the Mormon Church, also known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or LDS, officially admitted to Smith’s so called “plural marriage” in an essay it released on its website:

In biblical times, the Lord commanded some of His people to practice plural marriage—the marriage of one man and more than one ...

After 200 years of lying about it the Mormon Church is finally admitting that its founder Joseph Smith had forty wives. If the Church can change its official line on the man they consider to be ...

News flash: Immigration detention centers have been awful and continue to be awful for everyone. But more and more organizations and activists are shedding light on just how horrible they are, and the very immediate need we have for alternatives to incarceration.

Glancing through my news feed, here are a few reasons that immigrant detention needs to end:

1. They are not providing adequate mental health services for survivors of violence.

Many, if not most, of the Central American migrants being held in family detention centers are victims of violence, many of them women and girls who are survivors of sexual assault. These centers provide the most laughably mediocre access to mental health services while keeping these people in triggering environments. I

News flash: Immigration detention centers have been awful and continue to be awful for everyone. But more and more organizations and activists are shedding light on just how horrible they are, and the very immediate need we have ...